Episode-373- News Events from Listeners

Rather than a typical listener question show today I decided to bring together 5 news events that were sent in by various listeners. The first one is not that obvious as to why it applies to the other four but I bring them all together at the end. We also bring in a recent 5 minute speech from Congressmen Ron Paul today.

Join me today as we discuss…

Azle Texas is out of water due to a single line breaking and needs help from 15 cities to fix it. – (Link to the source story)

19 Responses to Episode-373- News Events from Listeners

Jack,
Great show again today!
I’m very pleased you linked to Gary North’s page. I began reading Gary North’s stuff in the mid 1980’s and he is, IMHO, one of the smartest living Americans. Murray Rothbard credited Gary North as one of his teachers so that says a lot about Gary North.
Keep up the great work, Jack!

Sorry for the double post, but I wanted to add one thing because some people may get confused about something you said.

To Jack’s listeners:
Jack mentioned that humans lived thousands of years without government and only the last 1000 with and it has been a failed experiment.
I would have said it differently, but I agree with Jack’s point.
The terminology gets confusing so let me say it differently and if I miss Jack’s point I’m sure he will correct me.
The issue at hand is the state. State is when government is taken over by thugs and run for its own benefit and not for the betterment of society. This took place in England beginning in 1066, roughly 1000 years ago.
Technically, government can exist without state, but state always requires government.
The example Albert Jay Nock used in his great book “Our Enemy The State” was the Chippewa who had a free and voluntary government that maintained their society, but no state.

No you got it right my friend and technically there have been tyrants in place over the last 5000 years give or take a few thousand years. The Roman state went back over 2000 and is the best known but a Roman citizen in fact a person living in occupied Roman territory had a lot more real freedom then we do today.

It was indeed the rise of the modern state in England that I was referring to today, good call on that. This began the age were we spiraled with fewer and fewer options to opt out of a state run society.

The founding of America was not really about religious freedom, that was one small part of it. It was really freedom period, some wanted to run a church their own way, some wanted to own land, some wanted to travel freely, some wanted freedom to hunt, trap and fish.

My only issue with today’s episode is that social security isn’t like a Ponzi scheme at all. It’s a generational wealth transfer scheme with really nasty operating costs (as befits the the government). If people were born at exactly the same rate year after year, then the system would never collapse upon itself. It’s a combination of demographic booms and busts combined with vast inefficiencies that are killing it.

For that matter, there’s no reason why SS will ever die, as the money never “runs out” as long as there is employment and a government to collect taxes. What happens is the retirement age keeps going up and the payments keep going down. Even people in their 20’s might very well see a check by the time they retire (assuming the two conditions above are met), but that check might not cover more than their gas bill.

I think, though, that the message is the same: don’t depend on the government for ANYTHING you don’t need to, and government run pension plans are always bad ideas, since they are inefficient and liable to politics (don’t reform the system, or we’ll vote you out!). I just don’t see the point of calling it a Ponzi scheme when it’s not. Reality is bad enough.

Jack the first thing that will happen with ss anybody under 50 will be cut off.This happened to my dad in 1982 when Ronald Reagen made cutbacks my dad was 42 and had medical problems he broke his back in 3 places.He got it back after 6 months. I just wonder how long people that need it will go without this time.

This was a scary podcast. I am not going to consider SS as theft. I view it right now as keeping my parents above water. I might be able to draw and maybe not. I will never be prepared as i am now 48. Every time i take 2 steps forward in my preps and saving, i have something set me back;

This one will be up there with your description of the M3 money supply that I use to educate a few grasshoppers I know.(and maybe take a good look in the mirror as well as I am far from a perfect ant myself)

For those people who are (overly)scared by this stuff, just remember: Rome did not fall in a day, but actually too a couple hundred years to deteriorate into nothing. Those who are willing ostridges might not even notice it.

Its like living in an old house year after year and never doing anything to keep it up. You wont notice the day to day changes, but by after 20+ years you look around and realize, boy, this place sure isnt what it used to be. We may even be seeing a bit of that now.

-Ben

PS I notice special characters like quotes are getting goffed up so Ive left them out.

Jack, awesome show. I love the way you alternate shows, a bunch of practical prep show, with the occasional show pointing out why we do this. Man I wish you were doing this 5 years ago. I am so behind!

Jack, the way I read the comment from BuckyNance on the Azle story is that Houston was called _instead of_ the 15 or so municipalities nearby. Not in addition to. Which makes the whole thing even stupider.

@jpommer, you may be right Bucky is no journelist for sure, but neither am I. Some of his comment is subject to interpretation but like you said all the different interpretations do is vary the degree of stupidity of the situation.

The issue is you don’t understand what a Ponzi scheme is. Not just the master of the scheme wins, so do the early entrants. A Ponzi scheme is a transfer of wealth, in this case like most one that can’t be sustained. The system will crash and burn at some point.

To those that say well the system is keeping my parents or grandparents afloat or what ever, remember this is the system that made them dependent in the first place. As I said we have to honor the commitment to people of a certain age but working backwards the program needs to die a deserving death.

Think back to Federal Reserve – Day 1.
Call me simple minded, but hasn\’t it ALWAYS been mathematicaly impossible to pay off the debt? On day 1 the Fed handed the US $x in currency, and we immediately owed them back $x+y%. So, on Day 1 there was already no way to pay the FED back and walk away. Who thought that was a good idea?

Isn\’t this the very definition of a Ponzi Scheme? The Investors (the FED) are paid back by subsequet investments (by the fed again) rather than by any profits earned.

The FED is evil… pure & simple… as were the lawmakers who abdicated their responsibility to mint & regulate the country\’s currency.

It sounds like even the liberals agree that in another 10~15 years, this place isn’t going to be like it was just a couple of decades ago. If they are so concerned about this now, why they didn’t bring this up when the national health care bill was the hot item a little over 3 weeks ago.

The suggestion to collect and use water from the roof for drinking has some issues associated with it.

Many people have treated wood shingle, asphalt composite, or copper/zinc type roofs. All three of these will release toxins as they degrade that makes using roof water for drinking or vegetable gardening a risky proposition. Most filters will remove the bacterial and parasitic risk associated with collecting roof water (both real and serious), but will not remove hydrocarbons (byproducts of tar and sealants) or some heavy metals.

I have been doing research into this problem and the only viable solutions seem to be:

1. Installing a glazed tile or similar roofing material that will not release dangerous compounds into the water. You should still filter with a water filter to remove bacteria and parasites and probably install a first flush system to wash off deposited air pollutants before capturing for drinking.

2. Building a slow sand filter and having your collected water tested before use. The example I found where someone did this seemed to work for all risk factors (biological and pollutants). This is low cost and relatively simple to build, however the maintenance and use seems tricky to me and if you make a mistake you could be drinking very dangerous water indeed, as the previously filtered substances could end up in the water you drink.

If I had no other option, I would filter and drink roof water off my asphalt shingle roof, but I have serious qualms about relying on it as a long term source of water for myself or my food plants.

Please use this comment on a follow up podcast if you would like. I would be glad to share the resources I have found on this subject if you would like to do a show all about water collection. Or perhaps you have already done one in the past that I missed. I think it is a great subject and a challenging problem to tackle.

Dude, I’m not saying social security is a good thing. It was a cheap political trick from FDR’s administration to expand government influence dramatically in one fell swoop. They knew the issues with the system, and that if you ever had a large demographic surge, like the baby boom, that the whole system would have serious issues. They also knew they’d be dead when that happened, and they were right. Again, not to mention it’s efficiency problems and it’s moral problems (forcing people to pay at the point of a gun).

My only point is that it’s bad enough that it doesn’t need to be compared to something worse.